Diverticulitis comes in all sorts of different levels of severity, so it's not necessarily time to panic. Left ignored, and in its most severe form, you get that Brock Lesnar situation where you can get a perforated gut, need to have a temporary ostomy (Google images for the brave), and have to have a portion of your intestine removed. It absolutely can be life-threatening, so I don't minimize it at all.
But more commonly, in an uncomplicated case of diverticulitis, you get some diarrhea, some pain, and that's about it. Antibiotics and a clear liquid diet will fix it up, but it does take time to heal. The danger, if any, is in recurrence, and that one of those recurrences will be the more severe type. With younger people like Backes, you simply have more time in your life for it to recur - the "typical" case diverticulitis is someone in their 60s or 70s, not in their 30s like Backes. It's possible that if it comes back a certain number of times, he'll have to have a prophylactic (preventative) removal of a small part of his intestine.
I just hope he didn't ignore it - I'm sure hockey players are, by the nature of their job, used to ignoring pain. Sooner is better.
He'll likely go for a colonoscopy in a month - you generally can't do a colonoscopy on a "hot" colon, because, again, perforation is possible. And I'm sure that Backes' colon wouldn't take to being hit right now. They may reduce that time to 2-3 weeks if they feel a CT is able to demonstrate that the infection has cooled down.
I know this because I've had two bouts of diverticulitis, and I'm 40...but I still have all my intestine, and never been hospitalized for it. For me, the only side effect is that CVS is constantly spitting out coupons for medications for colonoscopy prep whenever I scan my card.
